Amina Saïd

Amina Saïd was born in Tunisia in 1953, and now lives in Paris. She is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently L’Absence l’inachevé., published in 2009 by Les Editions de la différence. She has also published two books of tales and fables from Tunisia, and several translations of novels by the Filipino writer F. Sionil José.

you have doubts about the patience
of this lion-colored earth
when its eyes absent themselves
to open on the blue
which colors its sense

like you like the poem
this earth is born
of the look that dreamed it

life is a crossing
between two shores

analogy of margins
slow movement toward the unfinished
song of innocence and memory

scribe in the night of language
when night speaks the language of noughts
you are on this earth
to grow your soul
tame what’s human
in dread
inhabit the word’s word
and keep the poem’s promise

I was born of a silence
between the sea and the olive-tree
of the rhythm of waves
and the childhood of light

words have a visible face
which hides another one

at the crossroads of the poem
some of them resist
expose me to the danger of speech

I was born of a silence
between the sea and the olive-tree
of the rhythm of waves
and the childhood of light
of July’s wedding of a summer moon
of an obvious fact and of a question

hanging from the world’s breath
I take my place in a sorrowful
wandering the place where I live
is always a border

I was born of a silence
between the sea and the olive-tree
of the rhythm of waves
and the childhood of light
of July’s wedding of a summer moon
of an obvious fact and of a question
of a swallow’s solitary flight
and of a fickle star

last meeting-place with yourself
death crater fiery mouth
where you leave your last pair of sandals